I’m so sorry I haven’t written or posted anything recently.  Reading and watching all the news is just making me crazy.  There’s so much going on, I can’t pick just a few to write about.

But now, Spike Lee’s irresponsible and dangerous behavior, has really pissed me off.  What he’s done is beyond reprehensible.  I read yesterday that he had re-tweeted the address to George Zimmerman’s house, which is stupid enough.  Now we find out it was the wrong address.

According to The Daily Caller:

The Washington Times’ Kerry Picket went to the address  that Lee tweeted as members of the New Black Panther Party were offering a $10,000 cash reward for Zimmerman’s capture, “dead or alive,” and others were demanding his arrest.

“[T]he Edgewater Circle address Mr. Lee re-tweeted out is not part of the gated Retreat at Twin Lakes where the shooting took place and where Mr. Zimmerman lives,” Picket reported. “The area is not even a gated a community.”

“In fact, I took a drive to that Edgewater Circle address that so many on Twitter re-tweeted and cursed, and I discovered through a neighbor, named Tim, who lives across the street from the address, that not only does George Zimmerman not live at the lakeside house but a woman by the name of Elaine does,” Picket added.

Picket also said several news agencies have showed up at the address looking for Zimmerman, which – with the crowds the Panthers, MSNBC’s Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have whipped up into a frenzy – may have put the woman, Elaine, in danger.

Read more.

I’ve also found another story in The Orlando Sentinel that talks about the address belonging to an elderly couple who have a son named William George Zimmerman.  Here’s part of what that article had to say:

A school-cafeteria lunch lady and her husband have received hate mail, unwanted visits from reporters and fearful inquiries from neighbors — all because their Sanford-area address is being disseminated on Twitter as belonging to Trayvon Martin shooter George Zimmerman, her son said late Tuesday.

The woman, 70, who has a heart condition, and her husband, 72, have temporarily moved to a hotel to avoid the spotlight and possible danger, said son Chip Humble of Longwood.

The woman has another son named William George Zimmerman who lived with her in 1995 and still lives in Central Florida. He is no relation to George Zimmerman, 28, who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Feb. 26, sparking national outrage and international interest.

William Zimmerman isn’t sure how his mother and stepfather’s address became public. He said he used it to register a car, get a drivers license and vote when he lived there briefly after college.

“This is really scary, and I’m concerned for my family,” Zimmerman told the Orlando Sentinel Tuesday night. “It’s scary because there are people who aren’t mentally right and will take this information and run with it.”

Read story here.

This story mentions Spike Lee’s tweet also.  I don’t think Spike Lee should be able to just walk away from this without a second thought.   He should be arrested.  What he did was very irresponsible.  As a celebrity, his words have power and influence and the things he says carry more weight.  This gives him responsibility to use that power wisely.   He had no right to tweet anyone’s private address, especially when there is so much heat around this issue.  He didn’t even bother to see if it was the right address, although tweeting that would have been wrong too.  Now with a $10,000 price on Zimmerman’s head, dead or alive, by the New Black Panthers, putting just any address out without knowing if it was correct, he could have been the reason an innocent woman or elderly couple might have been hurt. He shouldn’t just be able to walk away from this.

I’m sickened that he thought this was the right thing to do.  What if those people had been hurt?  The older couple needed to go into hiding.  And why, with “several news agencies” showing up at this address, has the press not stressed that the address tweeted by Lee is the wrong address.  They’re content to watch while this situation gets more riled up and they sit by idly fanning the flames, by sitting on any news that contradicts the meme that if it bleeds it leads.  Maybe they’re just hoping for a riot, because its better financially for them if that should that happen.

The Orlando Sentinel has written a story about what is rumor and what are facts.  If that story is out there, why is the main stream media being so consumed with their version of the story?  The continue to put out the story that this is a white on black crime and portray Trayvon as the innocent angel and Zimmerman as a “White-Hispanic” man who is a horrible, stalking killer, who murdered Trayvon in cold blood.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t thing Trayvon should have had to die because he was “looking suspicious” and walking in a neighborhood where “he didn’t belong”.  This is the reason I feel there should be an in-depth investigation, which looks at all the facts instead of only choosing to listen to those things that are being spread as rumors.  My first gut reaction was that Zimmerman must be guilty and he needed to be arrested.  But as time has gone by and I’ve heard more facts about this story, I’m not sure the first version is the true one.  Although I continue to watch the news, I still hear only the one side of the story.  What’s with that?  Maybe the media should get a clue.  They need to be impartial when reporting the news.  We, as Americans, are smart enough to figure out what’s going on without the media spoon-feeding us their version of what they want the truth to be.

The media has been complicit in the fanning of the flames in this situation by not reporting on all the facts.  As I mentioned above, The Orlando Sentinel has an article that identifies some of the rumors and facts of the story, but why haven’t other news organizations picked it up?  More facts are coming out as more investigation is being done.  Nothing justifies the death of this boy, but all of this rhetoric is just making it worse.  Let them have a thorough investigation before the rush to judgement.  People who want to stir the pot and make this only about race are making this worse every time they ramp up their rhetoric.  Even the New York Times referred to George Zimmerman as a “White-Hispanic”.  What is that?  They are so desperate to make this about white on black racism that they’ve invented a new ethnicity, “White-Hispanic”.  They’ve stolen George Zimmerman’s ethnicity, just to make this about white on black crime and racial profiling, before even knowing all the facts.  They don’t refer to President Obama as “White-African-American”.  That would, of course, be ridiculous.

This is America.  We don’t practice vigilante justice.  We don’t get to make the decisions of guilt or innocence based on the news.  We don’t get to offer rewards for someone’s capture, “Dead or Alive”.  By the way, the capture part is called kidnapping.  I believe that alone is a felony.  We don’t commit felonies to make our own justice.  I want justice for Trayvon Martin.  I also want justice for George Zimmerman, whatever that justice may be, but not street justice.  I have a 17-year-old son, and if someone shot him to death, I would want to give that justice myself to the person who shot him, but I would have to let the law handle the justice.  It’s the only way our country can stand.  We are a nation of laws, not a nation of vigilantes.

Pray for justice for Trayvon.  Pray for justice for George Zimmerman. Pray for our country.  Long may she stand!